FDR - Jean Edward Smith [370]
Stalin believed Germany should be dismembered. The Germans, he said, were a very talented people and could easily revive within fifteen or twenty years. Disarmament was insufficient. Furniture and watch factories could make airplanes and shell fuses. He preferred dismemberment—“as Richelieu had done three hundred years ago.”76
Churchill said he was primarily interested in seeing Prussia—“the evil core of German militarism”—separated from the rest of Germany.77 Roosevelt proposed the division of Germany into five parts, plus two regions, Hamburg and the Ruhr, placed under international control. Stalin said he preferred the president’s plan to Mr. Churchill’s, but “if Germany is to be dismembered, it should really be dismembered.”
“Germany had been less dangerous to civilization when divided into 107 provinces,” Roosevelt responded.
“I would have hoped for larger units,” said Churchill.78
At one point Stalin wryly suggested that 50,000 officers of the German general staff should be summarily executed at the end of the war. Bohlen saw that Stalin was smiling sardonically as he spoke, and so did FDR. “Not fifty thousand, but perhaps forty-nine thousand,” the president shot back. Churchill was not amused. He did not perceive that Stalin was goading him and rose to the bait. Britain would never tolerate such an outrage, he passionately responded. “I would rather be taken out in the garden here and be shot myself rather than sully my own and my country’s honor by such infamy.”79
Dinner the first evening was hosted by Roosevelt. As during “children’s hour” at the White House, the president commenced proceedings by mixing martinis for his guests. Over the years FDR’s martinis had become increasingly heavy on the vermouth, often both sweet and dry. Stalin accepted a glass and drank without comment until Roosevelt asked him how he liked it. “Well, all right, but it is cold on the stomach.”80 Bohlen noted that Stalin was not a heavy drinker. He took vodka sparingly and much preferred wines from his native Georgia. Roosevelt was much impressed. Stalin is a very interesting man, he told Frances Perkins. “They say he is a peasant from one of the least progressive parts of Russia. But let me tell you he had an elegance of manner that none of the rest of us had.”81
After dinner Churchill raised the question of Poland. “It would be very valuable if here at Teheran the representatives of the three governments could work out some agreed understanding on the question of Polish frontiers.” Stalin said he did not feel any necessity to discuss the Polish question just yet but was curious what the prime minister had in mind. Churchill said that Great Britain had gone to war with Germany in 1939 because Poland had been invaded. The British government was committed to the reestablishment of a strong Polish state—“an instrument needed in the orchestra of Europe”—but was not attached to any specific frontiers. He suggested moving Poland west. The Soviet Union would retain what it took in 1939, and Poland would be compensated by shifting its border westward to the Oder, taking the German provinces East Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania. To illustrate his point, Churchill placed three matchsticks representing Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union on the table. He then moved them east to west “like soldiers at drill executing ‘two steps left, close.’ ”82
Roosevelt, who had retired earlier, took no part in the discussion. Later he met privately with Stalin to discuss the Polish issue. He said he did not object to moving the Polish border